I am always interested in reading other blogs. I frequently meet bloggers and we discuss their aims and goals. After such a discussion I will often look back at their blog and wonder why their blog does not seem to have anything to do with those stated aims and goals. Sometimes it does but only tangentially. Sometimes the blog is about a particular topic but never uses the actual topic name. And often the blog is about topic A but the blogger ends up doing a rant or rave about topic B. When that happens the blog is at cross purposes.
A blog at cross purposes creates a problem to the blogger for two related reasons. The first is that Google has no idea what to do with a blog if it does not see a logical topic that is supported by articles about that or similar topics. Want to be found well for your blog about seafood restaurants? Don’t write your article all about how much paper plates annoy you and forget to even mention that you are in a seafood restaurant. You are then working against yourself.
The second reason you should avoid the temptation to go on and on about unrelated topics is your readership. Whether you have 10,000 viewers of your posts or 10 they came to you because you write about something they are interested in. Do you write about train travel? Great, at week’s end the posts you put up should not have been primarily about your dog.
It reminds me of products. Skin care products are sometimes like that in their content. An anti-aging cream will be chock full of parabens which, of course, cause aging. So the cream works against its own aims and should really be a paraben free skin care product to be effective.
I know you are saying, “What?” And that is exactly my point. That little paragraph appears to support everything else I am saying but it is wildly off topic. It is a natural outgrowth of blogging that bloggers will have random thoughts that have a tie-in to what they are talking about. There are even bloggers who believe that the only way to blog is stream of consciousness.
But, is that really fair to a reader? Does it distract from the point you were making? And how does that help your potential readers find you on Google if search engines cannot tell what your blog is about? It’s all food for thought… and speaking of food….no, really, just kidding 🙂